Paranoid Park (18 page)

But I held them back. “Lots of people’s parents get divorced,” I said. “There are worse problems.”

“Like what?”

“People getting killed in Iraq. Little kids starving in Africa.”

Macy looked at me. “Since when are you worried about starving children in Africa?”

“You know what I mean. Our little problems. Our little issues. It’s all so stupid.”

“Not if it’s happening to you.”

“Bigger stuff can happen to people than their parents splitting up.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like stuff.”

She stared into the street. “Did something happen to you?” she said quietly.

“No. I just mean in general.”

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing. You know what I mean.”

Macy sipped her coffee. That was the thing about Macy. She wasn’t the dumb girl from down the street anymore. When she asked you something, the question sunk into you. You had to answer.

“No,” I said. “I just feel like there are other things that happen. Outside normal life. Outside parents and girlfriends and breakups. Like right out there.” I pointed into the dark street. “There are other levels of things.”

Macy was unsure of what I was talking about.

“Something
did
happen to me,” I said, before I could stop myself.

But Macy proved just how cool she was at that moment. She didn’t ask me what. She didn’t say anything. She just sat there, with her coffee, staring into the darkness. If I wanted to say more I could. If I didn’t ... well, that was okay, too....

Macy and I rode the bus home. We sat side by side, our hips touching, our elbows knocking occasionally. I held my skateboard between my legs and spun one of the wheels with my fingers.

An old man got on at Burnside. A woman with a PBS book bag dropped her change in the slot. I could smell Macy; her thick hair had frizzed out slightly in the rain. We rode up the hill. I pointed out the place where you caught the bus at the bottom of Vista. I pointed out some of the good skateboarding streets.

Macy’s cell phone rang. It was her mom. They had a short fight about when she was coming home. Macy didn’t back down at all. I didn’t remember her being so defiant to her parents. I found myself watching her talk, watching her face.

Also, she had a body. I hadn’t really noticed that before. She wore a tight sweater under her coat, and I could see it as she talked. Not that I was thinking about that. It was just more evidence of the transformation of Macy.

She hung up and tucked her cell phone away. We rode for a while in silence. “So Rachel and Dustin seem pretty happy together,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Do you like any boys?”

“Where did that come from?” she asked.

“You asked me about Jennifer.”

“It’s not really the same,” she said.

“Do you want a boyfriend?”

“I would if I liked someone. And if they liked me.”

“Jennifer was insane about having a boyfriend,” I said, spinning my wheel. “She’ll have a new one by the end of next week.”

Macy didn’t answer. She stared out the rainy window. “What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said something happened to you.”

“Just this thing happened. I can’t talk about it, really.”

“What kind of thing?”

“It was nothing, really.”

“It didn’t sound like nothing.”

“It’s nothing.”

“All right. If you say so,” she said. Her phone rang again. She checked to see who it was, then put it away.

“Have you ever had something happen ... ?” I found myself saying. “Something that really eats at you, but you can’t really talk about?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“What did you do?” I asked. “How did you forget about it?”

“Time makes you forget eventually.”

“Time heals all wounds?”

“Yeah. Or you tell someone,” she said. “You don’t want to keep certain things secret. Or it’ll build up inside you.”

“I know. But what if you
can’t
tell anyone?”

“Like what? Like if you got molested or something? You’re supposed to tell stuff like that. That’s exactly what you should tell.”

“No, but what if it’s something like, not in my case, but if you were in a war or something. And you saw horrible things.”

“You go to a shrink. Because then you’ll get that post-traumatic thing.”

I worried I had given away too much. I needed to say something to throw her off. “Or what if you took something? And you didn’t think it was that valuable, but then it turns out it is.”

Macy shrugged. “I don’t know. Try to give it back?”

“What if you can’t?”

“Then you just ... try to pay them back in some other way. Or just let it go if there’s nothing you can do.”

I spun the wheels of my skateboard with my hand.

We arrived at our stop. I pushed the button and we got off the bus. We walked down the street together. Dark clouds moved silently across the sky.

“You do seem different lately,” said Macy.

“So do you,” I said.

“I do? How do I seem different?”

“You’re showing up at parties. You’re hanging out. You’re wearing Pumas.”

“I always wore Pumas.”

“You used to be a nerd,” I said.

“You just think that because I liked you.”

“You were a nerd. Riding around on your little bike. With the little training wheels.”

“I did training wheels when I was six. Everyone does training wheels.”

“You know what I mean.”

We had arrived at her house. We both stood for a minute in the street at the bottom of her driveway.

“Well, I’m still sorry about your parents and all that,” she told me.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said.

“And whatever other dark secrets you’ve got in there,” she said, smiling and sticking her finger into my temple like a gun.

“I don’t really have any secrets,” I said, trying to joke around.

“Yes you do,” she said.

I didn’t answer. I gripped my skateboard. Above us, the towering evergreen trees swayed in the wind. For a moment I had a strange thought. That Macy and I ... that we could ...

“All right,” she said. “I better go. Or my stupid mom’s gonna call me again.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for the coffee,” said Macy.

“No problem,” I said.

 

Dear ___,

By November, there were no more mentions of the Paranoid Park murder. It was never on TV or in the paper. New murders had replaced it, new crimes, and of course the papers were always full of news about the Portland Trail Blazers. They had fired the new coach and gotten a newer one, who had “better values” and who would better represent our community-whatever that meant.

On the two-month anniversary of September seventeenth, I skated Vista. I had hoped there would be a sense of relief by now. I wanted to think if I could hold on, if I could keep going, I would eventually pass through to a better place. But there didn’t seem to be a better place. So far, there was just one place: my life, my brain, the things I had done.

I still thought about telling someone. That was more of a daydream now, a fantasy—it wasn’t something I seriously considered, not in the real world. Part of the problem was momentum. It was hard to stop a lie once it got going. Also, layers of other things built up over time. Secrets had a way of getting buried under the everyday routines of life. And once they were deep underground, they were harder to dig up, and what would be the point anyway?

One thing was for sure: I was never going to forget. Maybe it was true that time healed all wounds, but it couldn’t erase the scars. Twenty years from now, I would not look back on my high-school days with fond memories of girls and parties and football games. My clearest memory would be that security guard on those tracks. And it always would be.

I was also never going to feel the same about the people in my life. I would still have “friends,” but not like a normal person. That really was the worst part: not ever feeling quite right around other people. Not ever being able to truly relax and just laugh and be honest. I didn’t know what to do about that. I didn’t know if that would change.

I noticed that I’d started talking to myself. Not every once in a while, like a normal person, but all the time. I carried on whole conversations while I sat alone on the bus or drove my mom’s car. I don’t know who I was talking to: Detective Brady, my friends, God. Sometimes I would explain things, try to justify myself; I would hold a little press conference in my head.
The thing people don’t understand about my situation
...

Other times I would talk about stupid stuff, like: I
think I’ll make a ham sandwich when I get home, and watch
The Daily Show.

I guess it made me feel better. Maybe it was a form of prayer; maybe all my mutterings were really one long conversation with God. Which sounds profound and “spiritual” and all that, but to be honest, I would rather have talked to a real person.

But that was exactly what I couldn’t do.

Thanksgiving came and went and then one day Jared and Paul Auster came to my locker. I hadn’t talked to them in a while, but they made a special point to invite me to come skate with them after school at City Hall. It was cold and dry and sunny that day and I said yeah.

We drove there in Paul’s car after school. I sat in the back. At one point, Jared leaned over the seat and told me how a bunch of them had been talking about me, and they were worried about me, with my parents getting divorced and all, and why didn’t I skate with them more? “Skating’s the best cure for parent problems,” said Paul.

It was pretty cool they said that. Jared and Paul were not the kind of guys who talked about family stuff. Neither was I. But it was nice.

Christian Barlow met us at City Hall. A bunch of different skaters were there. Everyone was trying to ride the low rail along this handicapped walkway. This cool Hawaiian guy rode it the whole way and almost landed it. His friend videotaped him. Everyone else was falling and crashing pretty bad.

I couldn’t do it, but I practiced other stuff with another guy who showed me how to get higher on my ollies. I felt a sense of relief, just being there. I liked hanging out with Christian Barlow and especially Paul, who was pretty hilarious when he talked about girls and stuff that went on at school.

Then someone decided to go to Paranoid Park. I think the Hawaiian guy was going there with his friends, so Paul wanted to go, too. Christian and Jared were all for it. I guess no one was thinking about what happened in September anymore, since it was December. They just said, “Let’s go to Paranoid!” and everyone jumped in their various cars.

I was less enthusiastic about Paranoid, needless to say. My stomach tightened into knots as we crossed the bridge. We circled underneath and drove into the industrial area. It was late afternoon, almost dark; the tops of the old warehouse buildings were catching the last of the sunlight. Everything else was dark and shadowy.